In today’s post, project volunteer and by-now regular blogger Philip James has a look at a number of accidents reported in a single issue of The Times newspaper in 1906. It helps us put railway staff issues, including accidents, into a wider perspective. He also draws some interesting connections with discussions in 2021 about the […]
Tag Archives | London
‘Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!’
Our project is documenting the many risks incidental to railway working – including at times animal dangers. We’ll be coming back to the more usual of these in a future blog post, including horses, cows, and sheep. But for today, we’re taking a brief look at some of the more exotic animal dangers encountered on […]
The Case of the Monkey on the Railway
By Alexandra Foulds on March 15, 2021 in Accident aftermath, Blog, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Medical humanities
As guest author Alexandra Foulds notes, this post came about by a chance connection on Twitter – fortunately, though the subject matter is, perhaps needless to say, unfortunate. We’re really pleased to feature it, and look forward to working with St George’s University of London Archives again in the future. As this blog post makes […]
19 January 1911 – a bad day on the permanent way
Some days on the railways were worse than others – in total, and for particular grades of workers. The 19th of January was one which fell into the ‘worse’ camp. Across the database as a whole, fifteen individuals were involved in accidents between 1911 and 1915. Nine of these were in 1911 alone, including seven […]
A World War Two case
So far we’ve largely confined ourselves to the cases found in our database, to give you more detail on a small – but increasing – number of the 3,915 individuals involved in accidents, and to demonstrate some of the value of our project. Today’s post, however, strays beyond existing territory – and is a precursor […]
George Joseph Stuttaford (1855 – 1893)
By Martin O'Donnell on December 2, 2019 in Blog, Disability, Disability History Month, Family History, Guest contribution
In this guest post, former railway worker and now family historian Martin O’Donnell looks at one surprising accident he found in his family past. It dovetails neatly with Disability History Month, which runs from 22 November-22 December, and demonstrates once again that disability did not mean railway employment was out of the question. Sadly in […]
Volunteers’ Week 4: One NRM volunteer’s experiences
In our fourth Volunteers’ Week blog post, National Railway Museum volunteer Philip James outlines some of what working on the project involves, and one case from our ongoing interwar extension which caught his eye. We’re indebted to Philip, who has been with us since the start and is now working on the third set of […]
A miscellany of Waterloos
In railway terms, Waterloo generally brings one thing to mind: the London mainline station, in our period the terminal point of the London & South Western Railway. It was of course named for the famous 1815 battle in which Napoleon was defeated, which took place 203 years ago today – and it wasn’t the only […]
History repeating itself? Same location, same accident, same outcome – 2 days apart
One of the important things that our database makes it easier for us to see is how often similar cases occur: whether it be the same type of accident, the same type of injury, the same causative factors, the same location, the same grade of worker, the same people (subject of a coming post) … […]
A Valentine’s Day special
Accidents of any sort aren’t particularly romantic, it has to be said, but given it’s St Valentine’s Day this week, we thought we’d have a topical tour through our database and see what, if anything, it held. With so many cases to choose from, it’s perhaps unsurprising that there are some cases that are relevant. […]
